Oakwood Community Church

Stop Living like Godless Materialists, who are:

• Blind - they can’t understand the truth

“You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding.”
Ephesians 4:17-18

Stop Living like Godless Materialists, who are:

• Blind - they can’t understand the truth

“As a follower of the Lord, I order you to stop living like stupid, godless people.” Ephesians 4:17 (CEV)

Stop Living like Godless Materialists, who are:

• Dead - they have no connection with God’s life and power

“They are... alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance in them due to their hardness of heart.” Ephesians 4:18

Stop Living like Godless Materialists, who are:

• Hard-hearted - they don’t feel conviction anymore

“...Their hardness of heart. They have become callous.” Ephesians 4:18-19

Stop Living like Godless Materialists, who are:

• Slaves - they are controlled by their desires

“...and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” Ephesians 4:19

“With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him. All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life.” Proverbs 7:21-23

Live like Christians who:

• Actively Fight Sin

“Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life.” Ephesians 4:22

“Spiritual wisdom consists in finding out the subtleties, policies, and depths of any indwelling sin… to trace this serpent in all its turnings and windings; be able to say, at its most secret actings, ‘This is your old way and course; I know what you aim at.’”
John Owen, The Mortification of Sin

Live like Christians who:

• Actively Fill our Minds with Truth

“Be renewed in the spirit of your minds.” Ephesians 4:23

“Listen to rich expositions of the ‘gospel of the glory of Christ.’ Read your Bible from cover to cover always in search of the revelation of the glory of Christ. Read and ponder the Bible-saturated, Christ-exalting writings of great, spiritual men and women. And form the habit of meditating on the perfections of Christ. And in it all pray, pray, pray that the Holy Spirit will renew your mind, that you may desire and approve the will of God, so that all of life will become worship to the glory of Christ.” -- John Piper

Live like Christians who:

• Actively Follow the Ways of Jesus

“Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4:24